That’s because they’re man hating bitches.
There was a time when lesbians nurtured gay men dying from AIDS, but nowadays it’s all men are pigs.
In Spain we usually translate it as “think of the British Empire”. Makes for much bigger thoughts, you can spend more time thinking them while your boss screws your whole team 
As for the campiness, well, guys in general like getting in drag occasionally; for many of them there’s no attempt at “looking like a woman” at all, it’s “the campier and more exaggerated, the better”. And some guys are permanently campy. Why are there more perma-campy gay guys than straight ones? Because gay guys are more likely to get away with it and less likely to get tired of it.
This is the NUS, you can safely assume that anything and everything they say is divorced from reality. They are something of a joke in the UK due to a string of proclamations just like this.
Do you live under a rock? You really need to get out more.
I thought of the very same sketch when I read the thread title, choie Maybe these kids in the article saw the same thing too? hehe
Maybe all the gay guys around me act like white heterosexuals, so they don’t make my blackwoman-dar ping.
Here’s my complete made-up theory.
The sassy, loud, honey chile persona is one that radiates both femininity and strength. This style of self-expression is at home among American black women because it historically has protected them from the micro- and macro-aggressions that society has routinely thrown at them. It’s a two-sided identity. One side is the nurturing, wise, and jolly maternal figure who is generous with her terms of endearment and ability to promote commiseration through colorful storytelling. Her language creates bonds with other sisters, and these bonds are protective.
The other side of the persona is a no-nonsense, unapologetic bitch who does not suffer fools gladly. She can cut you words without blinking an eye, and then, when you start gushing blood, will kindly pass you a handkerchief so you don’t make a mess. Her language keeps hostile outsiders away from her inner sanctum. These outsiders fear her wrath, and this provides her with power that she otherwise wouldn’t have.
Gay men who embrace this duality derive the same benefits that black women have. You get the sista girl bonding and at the same time, you get to make outsiders wary of getting too close and familiar with you. The sassy shtick allows someone to be strong and “dangerous” while still be soft, likable, and fun.
Thanks, levdrakon. I was kind of alluding to that but I didn’t want to just come out and say it.
I’d like to hijack monstro’s thread very briefly. My SO & I used to volunteer at a place here in Tulsa called “Our House”. It was a place where people with AIDS & HIV could come for support, food, companionship, etc.
It was just an old house that my SO’s ex-husband’s boss’s wife bought and set up, as her son had died from AIDS. The backyard had a board fence around it. When someone died, their friends would take one of the boards from the fence, paint and decorate it with things appropriate to that person’s life and put it back in its place. It was both wonderful and beautiful. The planks were outré to the max, usually.
Here’s to you, Alice Wilder Bates. Okay, hijack over. Gotta go swab my eyes after those memories.
Ahem. Scott’s not gay anymore.
To the point made by you with the face – consider the Sassy Gay Friend series. The whole persona of Sassy Gay Friend is a person who sets you straight on your shit. Sassy Gay Friend advises The Giving Tree.
Edited: IIRC “Will & Grace” was one of the first mainstream tv shows to have a gay character who was just kinda a non-campy person who happened to be gay.
This is kind of a tangent, but not really.
To the gay guys here: Do people ever assume you have a sassy personality when you don’t? Like, when someone finds out you’re gay, do they suddenly start being more sassy around you and saying things they wouldn’t normally say to anyone else (like “you go girl”), just because they assume you are a walking stereotype?
I ask because as a black woman, people sometimes do this with me. I am so NOT sassy. I don’t roll my eyes, swivel my neck, or get indignant. Sometimes I wish I was sassy, but I just don’t have it in me. Yet there are some people who–if they catch me when I’m irritated or bothered by something–will respond as if I’m sassing the room up. They are doing it to be funny, I know. But sometimes it makes my go WTF. I know I don’t act like that. And it’s not just me. The two coworkers I’m thinking of who do it with me also routinely caricaturize another black worker the exact same way. She doesn’t “sass” either. I’m sure we both fulfill other negro stereotypes (we both like fried chicken, for instance :)), but our outward personas are not at all stereotypical.
I’m not especially bothered by the sassy stereotype in general, because I know there are plenty of black woman who do perpetuate it (I also don’t think sass is a bad attribute, in moderation). But I personally don’t like being stereotyped.
So I’m wondering if gay guys go through the same thing.
I know about gay people and campiness, but is that campiness really the same as the “sassy black woman”? I guess there are some similarities, but I never thought of them as the same thing.*
I assumed the comment was just especially ignorant, not caring enough about either group to notice the difference.
*Well, except Titus on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. But that’s the girlier style of gay that I almost never see.
My first thought was: what exactly does it mean to “ban” gay men from acting like black women? I am glad I am not alone in thinking this.
Fwiw, here’s a data point from India (I am a brown, gay male). A few of my friends can put up a campy personality when needed, though I can’t. That said, I am not sure if this was influenced by the black woman stereotype, or if it’s just general camp. “You go, girl” is pretty commonly used by some people. I have seen the finger-snapping, but it’s much less common.
Sometimes. I am often sassy but I don’t usually act like Derek from Happy Endings and I do get annoyed when people assume I’m a particular way. I would say in terms of annoyance it ranks below women who automatically assume I’ll be their gay bestie and above guys who won’t date anyone who’s not ‘straight-acting’.
I am lucky in that being gay is not an outwardly visible trait like race so generally people don’t know I’m gay unless I make a point of telling them.
PS. levdrakon does not speak for all of us. I know many lesbians, none of whom are man-hating and rhetoric like levdrakon’s does nothing for gender-equality.
Animosity between lesbians and gay men is a real thing, but I shouldn’t have been quite so blunt and dickish about it. Naturally, exceptions abound and I’ve had plenty of lesbian friends. My favorite is my aunt Donna. She was an older woman who lived through some of the scariest periods of police raids on gay bars, hidden back rooms where gays could get together. Later she took care of her gay male friends dying from AIDS. It was a different time when gay men & women stuck together for safety, cover & mutual support. These days, I don’t see a lot of rapport between gay men & lesbians, except on voting issues that coincide.
See, my question is, what is the wrong, strange, deficiency with heterosexual white men that makes them continually walk around saying “'Sup, homie?”, do complicated fist bumps, listen to rap music, and otherwise act like black men?
I’m fairly certain no one has ever mistaken me for any variety of “sassy.”
Usually, when I tell someone I’m gay, I have to repeat it two or three times before they realize I’m not joking.
If you’re looking for a serious answer: appeal to masculinity. Posturing and preening.
Also, damn levdrakon, we’re getting off your lawn as quickly as we can.
I teach in a predominantly black school district. The great majority of black women with whom I come in contact each day (fellow teachers, parents, older students) are not sassy. It may be a stereotype, but it has never matched reality IME.
I wish I could remember the title, but years ago I read a book about the casual racism in gay culture (it may have been more specific like San Francisco gay culture). The center of the book was a well known white homosexual performance artist that essentially did a minstrel show where he performed as a black mamy type. The descriptions of the show were horrifying but it was “for” a gay audience and seen as “all in good fun.”
How is this not offensive to black women? If an organization said, “From now on, gays and lesbians are not allowed to carry pocket calculators, wear eyeglasses or talk about science and engineering because those are mannerisms that only nerdy Asian men should have,” I’d be mightily irritated.